Since caffeine doping has been de facto legalized by IAAF (track and filed) what are benefits and dangers of caffeine doping:

--1) first of all caffeine seems to be good only as a mild pain killer (thus allowing better stretching), and over shorter of the long distances (1.5 to 10 K or a mile to 6 miles);
--2) from my personal experience and scientific studies: it does not work during interval or repeat exercises; moreover, it can help you only if you can keep even pace or even effort (not exactly the same thing) over the entire distance which in the case of a half—marathon or a longer distance may not be possible; I did drop of coffee (not exactly caffeine) cliff a couple of times, and it was quick, but a long way down to a painful landing.

There are a few doping methods that do truly work for different reasons. One of the reasons that world elite athletes are not likely to be busted for steroids is because there are so many meets in the IAAF Grand Prix calendars (I mean plural). Without steroids, the athletes would be not able to recover quickly form the injuries and micro—injuries that they suffer, and would not be able to participate in as many meets as they can do under the current circumstance. Lock of the world class athletes in many of the meets would lead to a decrease in the revenue, and many of the meets would be gone. This, in turn again, would decrease the revenue collected by IAAF, area, and national federations.
Dope is good – is not it, if used in moderation? Is it?
This also can explain why the marathon runners do take steroids.
The only way that a world—class athlete gets busted for taking steroids is when they are popping them constantly._________________http://vincovitanj.tripod.com/Do_not_be_a_victim1/index.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43o595CARQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x22Alfgv0DYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgcD2akmeJchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB0RcWYMwXU
one hand clapping

Dan's exactly right, the caffeine ban was a joke. The levels were so high you would actually experience diarrhea if you took enough to fail the test.

There has been some discussion about bicarbonate buffering lactate. I don't know about the latest research. Baking soda?? An 1/8 tsp contains 150 mg of sodium. That means a tsp is well over a gram. Most supplements will contain both sodium and potassium bicarbonate. Considering the relationship between those two electrolytes, to mess around with baking soda alone would be inviting disaster.